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A post-Andersson trade Flames cap space update
Photo credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images
Friends, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably read, heard and watched a ton about the trade the Calgary Flames made just over a week ago, when they sent Rasmus Andersson to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Andersson’s departure gave the Flames four assets from Vegas, but it also further amplified the club’s already ample salary cap flexibility.
As the Flames head into the final 30 games of this season, let’s delve into how the Flames look from a salary cap perspective, both this season and into the future.
The 2024-25 season
As of Wednesday morning, here are the players currently counting against the salary cap for the Flames.
Goaltenders [2]: $1.625 million | Dustin Wolf – $850,000 Devin Cooley – $775,000 |
Defencemen [8]: $19.992 million | MacKenzie Weegar – $6.25 million Kevin Bahl – $5.35 million Zach Whitecloud – $2.75 million Joel Hanley – $1.75 million Brayden Pachal – $1.187 million Hunter Brzustewicz – $950,000 Zayne Parekh – $942,500 Yan Kuznetsov – $812,500 |
Forwards [13]: $53.493 million | Jonathan Huberdeau – $10.5 million Nazem Kadri – $7 million Matt Coronato – $6.5 million Yegor Sharangovich – $5.75 million Joel Farabee – $5 million Mikael Backlund – $4.5 million Morgan Frost – $4.375 million Connor Zary – $3.775 million Ryan Lomberg – $2 million Adam Klapka – $1.25 million Martin Pospisil – $1 million Matvei Gridin – $942,500 Justin Kirkland – $900,000 |
Injury Reserve [4]: $9.437 million | Blake Coleman – $4.9 million Jake Bean – $2.75 million John Beecher – $900,000 Sam Honzek – $886,666 |
Retained Salary [2]: $4.15 million | Rasmus Andersson – $2.275 million Jacob Markstrom – $1.875 million |
Buried Cap Hits [1]: $100,000 | Daniil Miromanov – $100,000 |
We don’t need to get into the needlessly complicated math of the Flames’ daily cap savings from the first 113 days of the season – the NHL’s cap operates by taking a daily snapshot and rolling each day’s savings forward – but here’s the gist of it: the Flames are currently projected to have about $8.936 million in cap space at the end of the season, and their cap spending will amount to about $86.564 million.
Even with carrying cap commitments from four players on the injury reserve list, two retained salaries and a small bit of Daniil Miromanov’s NHL cap hit while he’s in the AHL, they have oodles of flexibility for the remainder of the season.
That flexibility will likely carry over to next season, too.
Anticipated changes for 2025-26:
- The retained salaries for Andersson and Markstrom expire on July 1 when their current contracts do.
- Dustin Wolf’s extension kicks in, raising his cap hit from $850,000 to $7.5 million.
- Devin Cooley’s extension kicks in, raising his cap hit from $775,000 to $1.35 million.
- Mikael Backlund’s extension kicks in, dropping his cap hit from $4.5 million to $3.25 million.
- Martin Pospisil’s extension kicks in, raising his cap hit from $1 million to $2.5 million.
An early 2025-26 outlook
Here’s a snapshot of the cap commitments the Flames have on the books, looking at players with one-way contracts (and Sam Honzek, who seems like he’s nearly a lock).
Goaltenders [2]: $8.85 million | Dustin Wolf – $7.5 million Devin Cooley – $1.35 million |
Defencemen [6]: $18.1 million | MacKenzie Weegar – $6.25 million Kevin Bahl – $5.35 million Zach Whitecloud – $2.75 million Joel Hanley – $1.75 million Brayden Pachal – $1.187 million Yan Kuznetsov – $812,500 |
Forwards [12]: $55.68 million | Jonathan Huberdeau – $10.5 million Nazem Kadri – $7 million Matt Coronato – $6.5 million Yegor Sharangovich – $5.75 million Joel Farabee – $5 million Blake Coleman – $4.9 million Morgan Frost – $4.375 million Connor Zary – $3.775 million Mikael Backlund – $3.25 million Martin Pospisil – $2.5 million Adam Klapka – $1.25 million Sam Honzek – $886,666 |
With this framewokr, the Flames have $82.63 million in cap commitments across basically a full minimum roster of two goalies, six defencemen and 12 forwards. That would leave them with $21.37 million in available cap space below the $104 million cap ceiling. (They’re already above the cap floor of $76.9 million.)
Among the players that could be pushing for full-time gigs include Hunter Brzustewicz ($950,000), Zayne Parekh ($942,500) and Matvei Gridin ($942,500). As Honzek would be as well, this trio of players will be waiver exempt in 2025-26 and able to split time between the Flames and Wranglers.
In other words: the Flames will have the ability to do a lot of interesting things, if they want to, with their large amount of cap space both this season and into the future.
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